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The moon returns to human ambition
Trump insisting on lunar priority could ignite a new space race, with flags, reactors, and ambition racing across silent craters.
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Staff Reporter - Thu, 01, Jan 2026
- 00:30 EST
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Donald Trump / Instagram/@realdonaldtrump
If Earth’s space ambitions were an old Western, the original Moon landing was the 1969 duel at high noon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin tip-toeing around lunar dust while Uncle Sam and the USSR watched with popcorn.
That was the climax of a Cold War sprint that ended with the Americans planting flags and grinning at TV screens back home. The cosmic trophy case was full — until it wasn’t.
Fast forward to now, and it feels like someone found that old Apollo bookmark and thought, Why not race again?
Cue the Trump administration brandishing an executive order titled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” which lays out a bold goal: American boots back on the Moon by 2028 and a permanent lunar outpost by 2030.
And yes — nuclear reactors on the Moon and in orbit. Because nothing says “hospitality” like a little fission beneath your space boots.
Officially, this is framed as leadership, exploration, security, and prosperity. Unofficially, it might read in some interstellar P.R. memo as: “We got there first. Again. Don’t mess with our flag.”
The directive even calls on private industry to help make space great again, with a $50 billion investment charm offensive to woo commercial space startups.
But wait — it’s not just the Americans jogging up the lunar hill. China has been steadily building its own moon résumé, launching robotic missions, planning crewed lunar landings by the end of this decade, and working on its International Lunar Research Station in the 2030s.
Meanwhile, India isn’t content to watch from Earth’s equator. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has already grabbed headlines with Chandrayaan missions and is teaming up with Japan for further lunar exploration this decade — scientific cooperation, no lasers drawn.
South Korea even has its own long-term lunar ambitions.
So, is this a Galactic War Game? Not yet (no cosmic tanks rolling over craters). But there’s a whiff of playful rivalry in the vacuum of space: flags, reactors, race clocks, and PR offices polishing mission patches.
And as for IAEA inspections on the Moon or how the Moon will feel about us, we’ll leave lunar feelings to poets and moonlight songs.
History is repeating itself, only with more countries, fewer Cold War tensions, and far better internet memes.
Whether this becomes a 21st-century space cold war or a cooperative leap to Mars and beyond might depend on whether terrestrial leaders can share power tools and lunar rovers without turning them into trophies.
The Moon probably just wants a decent cup of cosmic coffee — and maybe a quiet crater to nap in.
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